foibles, fables and follies

Tag Archives: things to do

Ahhh, January. The month of new beginnings, of fresh starts, of plans and goals and motivation. Of post-holiday depression, of dark mornings, of bleak weather (yes, even in Arizona). It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

We’re a whole month into the new year, and I’ve had plenty of time to think about how successful I was on my resolutions for last year (surprisingly successful!) and what I want to do with the year ahead of me.

Last year was about the little things – the minor elements of daily life that tend to pile on top of each other to put me in a foul mood. With a few little adjustments, I started chipping away and the things that stressed me out the most. I took a test, tried to be on time to work (which worked out until the time changed), flossed my teeth (sometimes – I guess, slightly more than usual), started running, and compiled and began reading a very long book list. And then, as with everything else in life, huge gigantic upheaval entered and I was worried that all my work was for naught.

Arizona mountains in December

Turned out that was totally false. As far as helping me achieve my goals, moving has been one of the best things that’s happened in a long time. Of course, I’ve always loved moving. Yes, it’s hard. It continues to be hard every single day. But talk about new beginnings! I wrote a little about how moving has changed very basic things about my habits. Since getting our stuff back and moving into a new place, those habits have changed again, and not necessarily for the better. But I have the unique chance to re-organize my life, basically from scratch.

I have big plans for 2013. This year is about the big things, the goals that will pay off in the long term, but will take some work today.

In 2013 I’m going to:

take all my architecture tests. And hopefully pass them all, too, but let’s set reasonable goals, OK?

The last Sunday adventure that we went on was to the Arizona Desert Museum. It’s pretty cool because the museum is somewhere between a hike through the desert and a zoo. There are many different desert animals there, along with displays of Arizona’s geological history and how deserts work, but you often feel like you are on a desert path with nothing around.

Desert Mountains on the drive to the museum

Prairie Dogs!

Nate with a Saguaro – the things you take pictures of when you’re not “from” the desert

My turn with the cactus

What a saguaro looks like when it’s dead

Javelinas

They have water fountains all over the museum. Can’t let that dehydration sneak up on you. We took our water bottles, but it was nice to be able to fill them up.

Apparently Festival Season in Tucson starts at the end of September! I’m very excited about this – I love festivals! It’s a chance to get out without really needing to plan something to do. They are usually pretty inexpensive or (even better) free to attend, and there is almost always lots of good food.

This past weekend we went to the Tucson Greek Festival at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. To be fair, I went for the baklava. As long as there was baklava there, I was going to be happy. Considering it was a Greek festival, my chances were approximately 100%. And I was not disappointed! Not only do I love baklava, I love Greek food in general. We went a little befor dinner and wandered around the display stalls and the festival grounds to see what there was. Not too much beyond the food and stages, but that was OK by me. Then we went a got some delicious food and stayed for a bit to watch the dancing and listen to the music.

A few weeks ago we decided to go out and explore some Tucson culture. Every second Saturday of the month, downtown Tucson is host to a free urban street fair with live bands, food, street vendors, and kids activities. We’d never gone, although we’d been talking about it for a while, so we went to check it out.

Combo Westside – Jazz, Bossa Nova, Bolero, Soul, Funk

The Tryst – Soul, Funk, Rock, Jazz and more

Deceptively Innocent

Chicago Music Store Storefront – not sure why Forever 27

I really enjoyed the music from The Tryst, and Nate liked Deceptively Innocent. Turns out they’re a Green Day cover band, so no surprise there. They are all about 16 and they played for 4 straight hours with way more energy than I will ever have.

It was a nice night out, although I’m not sure we’ll make it a monthly excursion. It was a pretty small crowd and there weren’t a ton of options that we could see, for food and drink. Well, there were no options for drink, so that might be part of it. But the music was pretty good and it was fun to be out around other people! Yay!